


Cardinal's Journal

by Experiment413



Series: Mianite: Awakening Lore [1]
Category: Mianite - Fandom, Minecraft - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fanmade Mianite S3, Gen, Mianite Awakening - Freeform, POV First Person, Realm of Mianite, wings of fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-01-17 22:39:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 9,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12375630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Experiment413/pseuds/Experiment413
Summary: The complete writings of Cardinal, an alternate Alyssa living in the realm of Ezaven.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who don't watch Mianite Awakening:
> 
> 1\. GO DO THAT ITS A RLY NICE SERIES THAT I ACT AND WRITE FOR  
> 2\. You may not fully understand this little series of writings due to several factors, but hey I can help clear it up.
> 
> Cardinal's Journal (aka "The Cardinal Journals") are a puzzle piece of my character, The Clear Sky Hermit's past. These are post-S2 events that take place in an Andor Lives scenario and where the heroes land in a realm named Ezaven. One of the streamers of M:A, blondetheftauto/Taylor, collects these and many were eventually passed onto the NPC Omelette.
> 
> Most characters here you already know. They are just hidden under nicknames, which was the major piece of Sky's puzzle. (If you're lazy, the answers and speculations are on Sky's wiki page on the M:A wiki.)

“Do it,” he uttered. There was nothing I could do except stand and watch as my best friend stood, an orb of energy inches from his face. Splintered quartz littered the floor beneath him, I could see the cracks in his face grow as he grinned.

 

In the face of death, and Clear Sky smiled. I could see him shake and tremble, memories suppressed from Ruxomar. He did not like Mianitees, he never had, not after we lost Pygmy Owl and Jupiter went mad.

 

I could still see him after the Incident. Bruised and limping, I hugged him so tightly when he returned.

After all he’d been through, I saw Clear Sky, facing his doom.

 

“Kill me, if you dare.”

 

I’d spread my wings to try and get a lift and zip over to him, but the two Mianitees at my sides grabbed and pulled me back before I could get off the ground.

Clear Sky spared me a glance, a simple sign that he’d be fine.

 

The spell fizzled out in front of him. I gave a sigh of relief.

 

“Let these two go, they’re of no use to us.”

“What about the ransom?”

 

An updraft caught my wings. We were flying again.

When I looked to him, I saw red blood stain the white marble beneath the shattered glass under his eye.


	2. Chapter 2

I went back home yesterday, Dad’s always really worried about where I wander off to nowadays. I have to remind him a lot that I’m going to be fine, I’m an adult. He worries about Clear Sky so much, he knows how rough the Mianitees here are, especially on a smaller group like the Ianitees.

 

I ran into Jaybird while I was going through town, he’s changed a lot. I can tell him and Red have been getting more into the whole god thing, they’re wearing a lot more white. Even Emerald is starting to get wary of them. I tried to find Bolt to check in on him for Clear Sky, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. Seems he’s been put off as well, maybe Ianite’s telling him the same stuff as she’s telling Clear Sky.

 

Jaybird said he’d do anything to please Mianite once, and I’ve found out how true that is since I met him. Red is a little hesitant, but I see that fire in her eyes. Jaybird said I was lucky that I wasn’t an outlaw. I know he’s going to try and catch Clear Sky. Knowing Clear Sky though, he’ll either save himself or Bolt will.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s becoming rare that we see Bolt, he’s grown so stressed since everything went to hell. He’s been out traveling as well, and we’ve seen Pyrite with him almost every time we’ve run into him. Clear Sky says it’s strange that Bolt is acting this serious, that they all used to be so lighthearted. I tell him we were as well, we’re just adapting to a life we don’t want. Clear Sky adores forests, but we’re almost always in the deserts and mesas, hiding away from whatever is coming after us.

 

Ezaven is a foreboding place, never as much as Ruxomar was to Clear Sky though. Here, it’s infinitely less dangerous, while Clear Sky worries more he’s not in constant stress like before. Maybe a visit to Mystic would help him out, he always goes when we get tired of adventuring.

 

That’s why it’s so nice for us to run into Bolt. He’s one of the few people Clear Sky trusts with his life. We’re all so tired though, even Bolt’s run down. I could even make a joke of that and say he’s lost his charge. We met him just as the sun was setting in Veracrates. He told us Pyrite was out buying more materials for those robots of his, so he’d come along with us for a few until Pyrite finished.

 

“I’ve been out exploring Riphia. I’d ask Red to come with me, but she’d hate it,” Bolt told us. “Plus, Pyrite wanted to come with to test some things.”

“You mean he runs more tests than spying on people?” Clear Sky joked.

“That’s a low blow,” I replied.

“What, I’m not subject to those experiments anymore. Leave me alone,” Bolt was laughing. 


	4. Chapter 4

I’d never seen that much grief on Clear Sky’s face after the Incident. He sat, face in his hands, taking long breaths and sighing too much. He’d cry if he had the energy, but he was too exhausted.

 

My wings ached, and my arm was ripped up, gouges running along it from the previous battle. “Mianitees,” Clear Sky hissed from between his teeth.

 

We fled back to my dad, who welcomed us with panic and quick medical attention.

 

As he worked on patching up Clear Sky, who bled from a nasty cut in his side, I saw him tense a bit and the leftover machinery from his wings in his back whirred unhappily, if he still had the things they’d fold back.

 

“What happened, you guys? You’ve been almost dead silent since you got here,” my dad asked.

 

“Mianite happened.”


	5. Chapter 5

It stormed all day yesterday. Currently, everyone’s asleep here aside from me. We got into a nasty fight with a few of Mianite’s followers, Red and Jaybird among them.

 

It was out of the blue, we were leaving Veracrates and an airship pulled up and started shooting at us. Bolt was with us, and he managed to block the first few incoming shots. We had scattered off, but they eventually went melee to try and weed us out from the hill we were now hiding in.

 

Bolt and Clear Sky have much more fighting experience and ability than I do, which is good for them, but not so much for me. As I crawled up one of the steeper edges, I had to drop back down as Clear Sky almost stepped on my fingers. I did my best to get some height in the rain and wind, and I saw Bolt, up in the sky, trying to shoot down the airship with his arrows, and Clear Sky, fighting sword against sword with one of the Mianitees.

 

We could tell they were members of The Golden Realm, and they seemed eager to take Clear Sky’s ransom. Metal clashed as Bolt zipped about in the sky, dodging bullets on his wings. I drew my own bow to try and take a blind shot on airship.

 

Clear Sky disarmed the first one using the curve in Callisto’s blade, letting him aim for the hilt and knocking the sword out of their hands. Lightning struck in the distance, causing the dark blue sky to flash white.

 

I lowered my bow for a second, eyeing the shapes taking shelter in the airship. Another Mianitee jumped into battle with Clear Sky, an extra with a pair of those featherless, membrane-less wings slung themselves across the side and went after Bolt.

 

I turned my arrows to the one fighting Clear Sky. He was nearly shoved off the side of the hill, but I saved him with a lucky shot. Thunder roared angrily as I landed and Clear Sky rolled one of his shoulders, taking a defensive stance against the airship. We saw another shape jump off the side of the ship, and one stood on the edge, her ears perked to attention. Jaybird crawled up over the edge, raising his rapier towards us.

 

“Traitors!” Bolt yelled from the sky, being knocked backwards by his opponent, but catching the air drift he was on again. Lightning crashed nearby.

 

“You kids are just troublemakers, aren’t you,” said Jaybird. “We should’ve trusted the king, this wouldn’t have happened if we did.”

An arrow landed just at our feet, now being fired at by Red on the edge of the ship.

 

I looked to the ground, then back to Red, and took a few shots. Bolt got rid of his opponent and he dropped from the sky next to us, catching his breath.

“It never had to come to this, and you know that.” Bolt drew his cutlass.

 

Jaybird sent a jab towards Clear Sky, who blocked the hit. Bolt swung at Jaybird, but he ducked to avoid the slash, aiming lower and smashing some of Clear Sky’s glass with a hard enough blow, causing him to yelp and recoil. Red landed a shot on Bolt as she dodged my shots, and he yanked the arrow out of his shoulder, tossing it to the ground, swiping again at Jaybird, trying to knock him over the edge.

 

Clear Sky took a moment to get up, and when me and Red fell backwards, I understood why. Looking up and gripping the ground, I saw Clear Sky conjuring up a whirlwind, knocking the airship out of the sky and making it crash on the desert floor.

 

He looked to me for a second as he got up, the both of us now aware that several members of the Golden Realm airship survived and were now going after us, outnumbered two-to-one.

 

Clear Sky turned to me and said, “Alyssa, run.”


	6. Chapter 6

Clear Sky is gone.

 

He’s just vanished. He passed out yesterday, and I brought him to Mystic’s house, and when I went to see him today, and he straight up vanished from where he was, bedsheets completely undisturbed.

 

We know he didn’t leave. His things are here, he left Callisto and Europa, all his arrows and potions are here too.

 

Before he disappeared, we were out in the rain in Willowwoods. He was running another speech, as he does. It gets his anger out, everything he has kept up in him he gets to release in a non-violent way. 

 

He was pissed at the Mianitees, he always is. They run rampant here in Ezaven, just as much as they did in Ruxomar. I wonder when that won’t be the case, and he’ll be able to rest for a second.

 

After his voice had died and that wild wind around his head ceased, there was a momentous pause, and a lightning bolt came down directly on him.

 

He was out like a light, and I’m so happy he was still breathing. When we got him to Mystic’s, an awful lightning-shaped scar criss-crossed across his back.


	7. Chapter 7

It’s been three days, Clear Sky’s back. 

 

He said Ianite hauled him off into a dream, surprisingly also his physical form too.

 

He told us that he was a mess after he found out what had happened. It was almost as bad as the aftermath of the Incident, even. He said for two days he just sat in Ianite’s arms and cried. She did her best to bring him back to himself.

The third day, when he had calmed down, they talked. They talked about the future, what Clear Sky would do next, what he would become.

 

Ianite wants him to venture, to explore, to get out there where people need him. She said there’s no need for him here, not now. Someone else needs him, but they don’t now. They will later.

 

He’s scared to be a hero. He wants to be a champion so badly, he talks about it so much, though he knows it will never happen. He’s just scared. It’s not his place to be a hero, he says. He helps heroes, he is not one.

 

Can he be a champion and be no hero?


	8. Chapter 8

We’ve slept all day today, for the most part. We are exhausted. Mystic stopped bothering us at some point and Clear Sky has been out like a light all day. He didn’t even bother putting bandages on his back even though it looks like a mess. Seriously, those scars look awful, and they’re so deadly close to his ports that I’m surprised he didn’t short circuit or just flat out die on us. (If he did short circuit, would that just kill him? I don’t think I want to find out.)

 

He thinks his systems are just down for now, not like he was using them anyway. He hasn’t had wings in ages, nor was there a need for him to since Ianite died. Whenever someone offered to take the system out of him though, he says no to it. It’s so strange how he clings onto his past, though he wants to let it go. Some memories are best kept, he says, wings included, even what happened in the Incident.

 

I ask him why he talks about the Incident so much. He asked us not to talk about it, which I understand, though he mentions it so much.

He says it’s just because it was a thing he went through, a thing he can’t forget, the little devil in his mind dragging him down even here. He knows he’s safe and that it will never happen again, but the ghost pains and memories still plague him.

 

He remembers the day too well, Bolt remembers it too. Clear Sky was so level-headed, so calm, so brave. Then he was out. Why’d Ianite let that happen to him, I wonder? It was her ability keeping him standing and speaking, keeping those huge wings of his spread in a display of the power he’d lose after that day. Everything he was, Clear Sky lost on the day before the Incident began.

 

Mystic talks about it, the day they found him. How shaky he was, his limp, the way he let no one touch his back for months, not even Mystic. He was so tired, just beaten up, Mystic could see the strain in his machinery when he tried to fly out of habit. He told very few about what happened during the Incident, it was a story trusted in the hands of me, Mystic, and Ianite.

 

Ianite knows everything about it. She’s out of contact with me, naturally, I’m a Dianitee, but when Mystic asked about it, she said that she would keep what Sky had left out from anyone, for Sky’s sake.

 

Every detail of the Incident was vivid in Clear Sky’s mind. Every inch of glass, the blood-stained concrete, the smell of rusting iron, every crack in the wall. Clear Sky knows the cold of steel, the slamming of metal doors, and the stinging of a blade way better than anyone else does. That is our Clear Sky, the one who survived the Incident and to this day is terrified of small, sharp objects, of hands on his back, of small, dark, cold spaces.

 

He’s still recovering, but I’m sure he can be okay one day.


	9. Chapter 9

[The handwriting changes to match Clear Sky’s.]

 

Cardinal is out today, so she asked me to write for her.

 

I’m not sure what to write about, though. Cardinal seems to keep this as a record of our travels and things she’s learned, she’s also seeming to record my stories, so why not surprise her when she gets back with a story I haven’t told her yet.

 

When I was a lot younger, but we’d already lost Pygmy and Snowy, I followed my father around because I really had no one else to follow around. He pushed me to be something I wasn’t, of course, but that was more slowly developed. Typically I followed my mother- we called her Snowy Owl- around. After she died, I had no one to trail after besides my father, Jupiter.

 

Jupiter was full of rage after their loss. The town changed so dramatically around us wherever he went, the town I loved warped into something it hadn’t been before, as corrupt as Ruxomar already was.

 

Even at this young age, Ianite followed close with me. She was full of fear and sorrow at this time, I felt her dread and suffered with her when Snowy and Pygmy died. The worse Jupiter got, the more scared Ianite became. After Bolt showed up, she recovered rather quickly, but that wouldn’t happen for years at this time. She worried for me, she knew I’d end up as a devout follower of hers, but what was I to do in a world slowly turning on its head until the heroes arrived?

Ianite was the reason I survived Jupiter at that age, before I could defend myself from his toxicity.

 

I remember walking down roads and my father being asked, “So that’s your little moon, huh? Always in orbit around you?”

 

In my teen years, I picked up the pen name Callisto, based off that very sneer. It was the only way I could write what I thought down and get it out there without anyone detecting me and imprisoning me for treason right off the bat.

 

So I weaved a story that ultimately caused me to use nicknames for everyone. Each person of my childhood played a role in those legends and teachings I wrote. My mother became Europa, my sister became Ganymede, my father Jupiter. After the heroes arrived, I “killed” Callisto, his writings suddenly stopping. Any book of his found in circulation was destroyed, but not by me.

 

The people of Ezaven do not know the tale of Callisto, to them I am merely The Clear Sky Hermit. All around the worlds I have visited, I am known as the Acolyte of Ianite. My family’s nicknames all reverted back to what they once were, with the exception of Jupiter himself, who I wanted to keep painting as the villain he truly was till I died.

 

Oh how we fall, depending on pen names to keep ourselves above the waves. Such is the fate of many authors.


	10. Chapter 10

[There’s a hand drawn map here with three notable paths, one violet, one blue, and one red. The violet one seems to hang around in drier climates. The red one cuts out and reappears from time to time. The blue one favors the coasts, but often intersects with the other two. Many of those intersections are marked with X’s.]

 

Emerald came out of the Riphia Nether portal while we were visiting. He’s really tired, not as much as my dad though, who went in to help out Dianite earlier. We took him in for a while, much to Clear Sky’s delight. I heard they were allies back in Ruxomar, along with Gala and Bolt. He and Clear Sky talk about Gala a lot when they see each other. I missed out on a lot by not living in Dagrun like them. Gala was also a friend of my dad’s, but they didn’t talk much after Gala settled down outside of Dagrun and we went out adventuring.

 

Emerald says he’s probably going to Veracrates in a few days, who knows if he’ll portal there or not, though he just might to avoid getting into trouble with the Golden Realm. On the other hand, we’re going back to check on Mystic, since she said something was up that probably needed our and Bolt’s attention.


	11. Chapter 11

Mystic’s been talking to Ianite a lot. It’s a little weird, normally Ianite communicates equally between Clear Sky, Mystic, and Bolt, since they’re all her three closest followers, but Clear Sky says he hasn’t been hearing anything from her that was very serious. Bolt was busy and didn’t show up, but he did send us a message telling us that he hadn’t heard any important news from Ianite either. If it was only going to Mystic, something was up. And I think my family tree is weird.

 

Clear Sky was jittery and needed something to do, so it was good for him to come as soon as we did. Most of the time while Mystic was talking, he weaved a string of amethyst crystals around her horns, which had grown since everyone had fallen here.

 

“Ianite hasn’t been feeling the way she tends to around here,” Mystic was saying. “She’s been off when we talk. I think she’s fallen ill.”

“We would’ve known by now,” said Clear Sky. “Red would’ve gotten sick, knowing her bad habits. She catches it, we all catch it. Are we sick yet?”

Mystic sighed. “Not in the slightest.”

“You see my point.”

“Checkmate, little dove.”

“Aren’t you guys resistant to the disease by now?” I asked. “You two have caught it so much that I’d think you are.”

“Not nearly as much as Red,” said Mystic. “She’s a carrier by now, no symptoms. I don’t look pale, do I?”

“No, you’re fine,” assured Clear Sky.

“Something just gives me a bad feeling. Is there anything off in the wind?”

“Normal patterns, why?”

“I’d just believe you would catch on first if something was truly wrong.”

“You’re closer to her than me, it’d be you.”

“If you’re saying that, then Bolt should’ve known first.”

“My point stands.”

 

Mystic sighed. Clear Sky let go of the strings before she stood up out of her seat.

 

“Both of you,” she said. “Stay here. Where was Bolt last, did you hear?”

“Veracrates.”

“Good. I’ll go wrangle that boy out of the desert then.”

“Be careful not to kill him,” joked Clear Sky.

“No promises,” Mystic laughed.


	12. Chapter 12

Mystic came back without Bolt, but with even more of a surprise. Clear Sky spent most of the day trying to communicate with Ianite to find out what was going on, but he wouldn’t tell me much beyond that something was really up, he didn't know what though.

 

We expected to see Bolt when we heard the door start to unlock. When Mystic walked in, she didn’t show up with him nearby at all (I think he would’ve ender pearled in and gotten stuck in the window panes anyway), though I noticed something was up when she was having trouble getting through the door in the first place. I gestured to Clear Sky and he hopped down from the loft.

 

Mystic had grown leathery wings, larger than even the first pair Clear Sky had ever had, shimmering violet scales against the black of the membranes and main structure. Clear Sky stood up straight.

 

“Trust me, I have no idea how this happened,” Mystic said. “Either this is Ianite’s doing or my suspicions from a while ago were correct.”

“Probably both,” said Clear Sky. “The world’s going to need another god soon anyway.”


	13. Chapter 13

We made our way to Veracrates, followed by Mystic. She was going to have to get used to this whole having wings thing, she typically flew using her personal magic.

As we flew closer to the desert city we hid about, we hit a nasty wind rolling perpendicular to the draft Clear Sky created. I asked him if he’d created it and he said no, he hadn’t. Mystic switched to her magic to keep herself from flying off course, and we did our best to swoop into what felt to be a storm brewing.

 

We landed in the dimly illuminated cobblestone streets, just as clouds began to gather and dusk fell. Mystic shifted uncomfortably as we made our way down the streets, finding Bolt, wings almost wrapped around Pyrite and Emerald. He turned his head to look at us, dropping the conversation he was having, and turning around and folding his wings to his back. Emerald looked relieved as he got to stretch out his own wings.

 

“Mystic, what happened to you?” asked Bolt, as Pyrite ran over to examine her newly earned wings.

“Do tell, these are stunning!” Pyrite said. “Not robotic in the slightest, that’s incredible.”

“Oh, I’ve got no idea how it happened,” Mystic said. She turned to look at Bolt. “Have you heard anything yet?”

“Nothing. I’m worried about that, though.” Bolt pointed upwards to the clouds. Clear Sky put his hands up in a ‘hey, it wasn’t me,’ manner.

“This was not the weather pattern predicted,” said Pyrite.

“Only one person can conjure up a storm out of the blue like that,” Emerald added.

“Ianite,” Mystic and Bolt said simultaneously.

“Gods, something is wrong,” Clear Sky worried aloud.

 

We knew what was wrong when we heard a crash of something out in the desert.


	14. The Battle of Balance

We headed to the outskirts to find a smaller Dianitee airship crashed into the sand, and one of the Golden Realm airships hovering above. I rushed to the fallen airship with Emerald running after me, and as I searched the wreckage for injured survivors, which there were little of luckily, my dad burst out from beneath a pile of debris, rage in his good eye and axe in one hand.

 

Tipped arrows skimmed me barely, landing in the sand next to my foot. I looked up to the airship above our heads, Bolt, Clear Sky, and Mystic already in the air, sending arrows and magic towards whoever they found on board the airship. I looked to the ground again to see Pyrite running in the opposite direction from the fight. I flew after him, grabbing the Mianitee by the collar of his vest and doing my best to yank him into the air with me.

 

“What are you doing?” I snapped at him as he squirmed in my grasp.

“Getting out of here, what does it look like?” he yelled back at me. “If they see me they’re going to call me traitorous and kill me on the spot!”

“You’re already a traitor, it’s too late for that!” I told him. “Mianite disowned you months ago! You’re not his champion anymore, Gaines!”

 

It was super hard to stay aloft with someone in my arms, I ended up taking a sharp dive and dragging Pyrite in the sand. He came up coughing up grains, and I shook him to try and get some of the stuff off him.

 

“Because he’s not the Mianite we know! Something’s wrong here, and you know that!”

“Of course I know that! So if you want the real him back, you’re going to have to help us!”

 

I dropped him in an oasis lake as I flew overhead it. Pyrite splashed into the water, and I swooped down to the edge as he surfaced, coughing and wheezing for air.

“Fine, fine,” he sputtered. “Just to get this all over with.”

 

We returned to what was now a battlefield, Dianitees alongside Ianitees trying to take down the Golden Realm. Mystic and Clear Sky pulled back out of the fight for a moment, talking amongst each other, before Mystic eyed the airship and began charging a spell while Clear Sky shut his eyes. A strong gust of wind hit the area just as I tried to fly up, bow in my hands, but it knocked me down out of the sky and wiped away the drafts many of the winged combatants were on. The airship swayed, and with Clear Sky’s and Mystic’s powers combined, the two Ianitees shot the airship into a downward spiral and crashed it to the ground. “Screw your stabilization systems!” Clear Sky yelled at the rubble as he took off again. 

 

Jaybird and Red, now winged, plunged out of the sky from where the airship once flew, pouncing onto Bolt. I aimed and fired, shooting Red out of the sky. I saw Clear Sky hesitate as he looked at Jaybird. I looked to the Mianitee, eyes widening as I noticed the wings on his back were the very ones of one of Clear Sky’s older foes, left a long time ago to crash and burn like the rest of Ruxomar. Sky gathered his courage, and shot an ender-coated arrow right at Jaybird, and as it hit, he vanished in a puff of ender particles. Bolt dropped down to the ground.

 

Me and Clear Sky rushed over to him, the surviving Dianitees, including my dad and Emerald, fighting with the last of Mianitees. Bolt had a deep cut in one of the gaps in his armor. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “You two best grab Mystic and get out of here. Leave this to us.”

 

Clear Sky nodded without a word, shoved a bunch of his arrows into Bolt’s hands, took my hand, and flew up to Mystic and told her we were pulling out of the fight. Mystic raised a finger to tell us to wait, and sent a large bolt of energy towards a group of Mianitees.

“Okay, now we go.”

 

The next day, we found out the citizens of the world had given the fight a name.

The Battle of Balance.


	15. Sandstone Temple

[These ripped out pages of the journals have been marked with a red ribbon that sticks to the front page. It reads “SANDSTONE TEMPLE”.]

 

Earlier this week, the city of Veracrates was illuminated by lone candles sitting on windowsills. Hardly a single thing stirred in the flat desert city. Clear Sky was on one of his kicks, an insatiable wanderlust he brought along with him from world to world from being cooped up in various places within Ruxomar for so long. We strode across cobblestone paths, watching shadows flicker in and out of view, odd shapes created by the elaborate architecture of the city.

 

Clear Sky did not know where he was going, but he knew what path he was taking. He sort of blindly goes into these things, never knowing what will happen or where we will end up. I like the surprise of it, guided by our gods into places we’ve never seen.

 

Dusk did not fade from the sky, turning the city all sorts of red-violet and orange shades. We wandered into one of the loops in the city paths, the tall, thin towers of carved sandstone and clay sitting in the middle. Sky went up to it, tracing symbols and pictures telling a centuries old story we’d never heard with our own ears. His fingers caught a misplaced piece of clay, and I slipped as a spiral staircase emerged, cracking cobblestones and shaking loose sand from the path it was beneath. He looked at me.

“This wasn’t Ianite.”

 

I got up, brushing dust off my skirt and stepping down the first few stairs. A dark, red and orange structure sat in the hole that had opened up, netherrack lining the walls. “It looks like a Dianite temple. Do you have a torch on you?”

“Unlit,” he said. He tossed one down to me, and I lit it, scratching it against the netherrack line.

 

Clear Sky followed me in, and we descended into whatever cavern we’d just found, depictions of the Nether lining the walls. The old citizens of Veracrates used whatever resources they had on their hands, the walls a sturdy layer of red and white sandstones, lined with ruby red and brown-colored clay from Odogow and netherrack. Clear Sky took to the walls, where engraved into the soft rock were depictions of the Nether and of the old Empire of Veracrates, of Dianite and of long dead mortals, I even pointed out Guardian Furia among the images.

 

This was another piece of Veracrates’s ever-vanishing history, the untouched roots of the desert city and its sister city Odogow, wiped away since the uprising of The Golden Realm. I took out my sketchbook and began to vigorously doodle whatever panels caught my eye as Sky circled the room.

 

I spun as I heard a swoop of wings, expecting to see a much younger Clear Sky, but of course he’d lost both his youth and his wings almost two years ago. Looking to the entrance, I saw Red, bow drawn and an arrow loaded. Not having a weapon at reach, I flung my sketchbook at my alternate, hitting her square in the chest and booking it to the opposite side of the temple. Red recoiled at the heaviness of that thing I carried around, ruffling her feathers and aiming for Clear Sky as she did her best to block the only exit out of there. Clear Sky pulled Europa as he dodged an arrow shot, firing blindly so his shot brushed her wings.

 

She tried to push us into the corner, but I found the opportunity to slip under her wings and divert her attention. I got my own bow, shooting her right in the shoulder. She spun towards me, and Clear Sky took this moment to knock her over with Callisto held sideways in his grasp and grabbing me and bolting out of the temple.

 

He didn’t look back, he just zipped off away from the temple and through the Nether portal a few miles out. We had some stuff to tell my dads.


	16. Silverwood Temple

[These ripped out pages of the journals have been marked with a purple ribbon that sticks to the front page. It reads “SILVERWOOD TEMPLE”.]

 

We took cover from the Willowwood Mianitees who kicked us out by running for the north. We didn’t know where to go, though we knew we were headed towards the mountains. It was a relief to us to find a temple constructed of silverwood and rowan in the middle of the forest.

 

Clear Sky sat, his back against the wall, catching his breath. I held a torch above my head, scanning over the room and making sure it was free of any unwanted visitors or creatures. We’d had enough run ins with zombies and spiders in these places.

As I shown my torch over the back wall, I found something very peculiar.

 

A tarp, fairly new compared to the rest of the building, covered it up, and I yanked it down with my free hand, stunned by what I found beneath.

 

“Sky, you’re going to want to see this.”

 

As he got up and moved to stand, we stood gazing at an intricate carving of Ianite, Clear Sky’s beloved goddess, whom he’d devoted his life to after recovering from the Incident in Ruxomar.

 

“The studies were true.”

 

We sat in an old, forgotten temple of Ianite, just north of Willowwoods. Its walls were wood the slightest shade of purple, so strange we couldn’t identify it, the ceiling and doors rowan, the accents silverwood.

 

Clear sky brushed the dust from the carving, and heard a soft click as he dusted off the gem on the carving’s forehead. We heard the sound of pistons shifting, and turned around to see a hole in the lowered floor.

“These places and hidden entrances, man.” “Shh.”

 

Clear Sky crept to the edge of the hole. “It’s pitch black down there.”

He looked to me and jumped in. I followed, wings spread to resist the impact.

 

We couldn’t see a thing, we stood still, looking around for a light source, on an old stone floor.

Sure enough, we found one, but it flicked on like a flame, and it was a few feet from us. Little purple lights clicked on one at a time in a circle around us, it wasn't hard to tell we were surrounded.

 

“Not this again,” Clear Sky said, voice hushed to a semi-panic. He tilted his head to look out the hole in the ceiling. “Help us, My Lady. You know we don’t like these sort of things.”

 

The light to our front moved forward, and a woman holding a small lantern with a little violet flame came into view.

“Are you one of us?”

 

“What?” Clear Sky asked, eyes shifting to meet her.

“Your Lady. Is she Ianite?”

“Yes.”

 

The woman extended a hand. Clear Sky took it hesitantly and shook it.

“Watcher Frost.” “The Clear Sky Hermit.”

 

“Tell me, Hermit, what are you? Such a peculiar title.”

“The Acolyte of Ianite. I’d ask the same of you, Watcher.”

“Why, acolyte, I’m the overseer of what remains of the old Willowwoods Ianitees.”

 

Our eyes adjusted to see the figures around us, men and women and non-binaries of various ages and appearance, looking about to each other between murmur and murmur. The Ianitees of Willowwoods had not been lost to the strands of time and fate, instead they had children, and their children were here, hiding beneath the surface.

 

The Watcher led us down the hall, into the depths of a temple beneath a temple, turned into a large living space, a civilization beneath the ground of all sorts of people. Dark faded into light as lanterns lit up the space. As we passed, curious children tugged at my clothes and at Clear Sky’s armor, asking who we were, where we came from, what we did.

 

“Welcome to the first and the last temple of Ianite. The end of all times, the beginning of new ages.”

“Huh. How long have you all been down here?”

“Time is irrelevant. You of all people should know that.”

 

She took us to a library, skimming over the books by running her fingers along their spines in a similar manner as Sky did. She pulled a fairly new piece of paper from between the hardcovers, reading it to herself.

“You’re an outlaw, dear acolyte.”

“Of course I am.”

“What did you do?”

“Treason.”

“Gods, and the Realm wants you dead. Why do you not hide?”

“It’s my duty. Ianite makes me wander. If not I’d go mad.”

“And she makes us hide, cultivate our culture in secret.”

“For the future, I’d believe. When this blows over, I’m sure she’ll tell you to emerge.”

“When the Realm falls, we ascend.”

“Naturally, for the sake of balance.”

 

The Watcher paused in thought.

“You know, acolyte, you’d be an exceptional person to assist with our younger residents. They crave to know of the outside. We worry too much for them, we let people go in and out of here freely, but their parents keep them here, for their safety. Surely you have stories to tell?”

“Many.”

 

So we started spending some time in the temple. We’re here as I write this, Sky telling a tale of Ruxomar to a few bewildered children no older than 10.

I’m looking forward to spending time here.


	17. Chapter 17

Sky adores the Silverwood Temple, I believe much more than he does the surface. That ultimately worries me, he has always loved the sky, and the air was always home to him. But at the same time it makes every sense, he has a habit to hide himself away when he’s worried, and finally he’s in a place where he can actually express himself. 

I’ll let him cool off, then I’m hauling him back to the surface.

 

Pieces of his old self comes back in places he feels safe. The Sky I knew in Ruxomar is different in the slightest than the Sky I know here, but those pieces of him returned here, as they do in Mystic’s house. He took some little requests from some of the children, and he sits in the next room over in the place we’re staying at, carving silverwood into little figurines, then ties a string through a loop in them when he’s done. Of course, he keeps all the shavings he can get in a bag, he never knows when the Taint will come around again.

 

I remember all too well when he was an artist in Ruxomar, his works appearing suddenly and overnight, and if you saw him the same day he’d be exhausted yet sleepless. He never gave up artwork, his inspiration just comes in bits, then he’ll go all out.

I worry for him, but I must also worry about the civilizations we discover.

 

The figures he carves tell stories of individual children he’s met here. One is an amphiptere, a legless dragon with a spiraling tail, similar to the one on the tower in the town of the same name. Another is a woman, her old, fading picture on the floor near Sky as he carved her face. Another is a simple key. A jewel, a cockatiel, a dragon, a scroll. 

These tell incomplete stories I don’t know, maybe he does.

 

He writes of individual, I write of many.


	18. Chapter 18

[A picture of a woman with small, curled horns and a boy with fluffy hair who looks familiar. They’re looking over a map.]

 

[A picture of a girl with long hair and leathery wings. She must be Cardinal. Next to her is the boy in the photo before, but in most of Clear Sky’s armor.]

 

[A flower is pressed into this page.]

“Forget-me-not”

Myosotis arvensis

 

[A photo of Cardinal, comically clinging onto Mot.]

 

[A photo of a man holding a bow. He looks a little like an older Sparklez, but only by a few years.]

 

[A photo of a man who looks like.. an exhausted Syn. He’s smiling, running a hand through his hair.]

 

[A photo, older than the others, of Pygmy Owl. She’s beaming, wearing her fancy cape and a flowercrown.]


	19. Chapter 19

Fear runs in our blood. Terror fills our eyes. We all have it, some more than others.

 

Those of us with a lot of it, we’re tired of running. We aim our swords at our foe, our arrows towards the enemy. 

 

Sky is exhausted.

He drops his sword to the floor, throws his helmet off, runs a hand through his hair. Mystic tells me she worries for him.

 

He’s scared. He always has been, since Dagrun, since the Incident. Since he begged for the innocent to be freed, since he was trailed by the World Historian, since his eyes flickered up to the Town Herald.

 

Sky is angry. He has every right to be. He’s sick of running from his problems, of cowering from his enemy. He wants to remake himself, from scratch, become a child again.

He’s lost so much of his hope and yet he wishes for a brilliant future.

Not for himself, but for others.

 

When he was younger, he was a force of peace. He raised not even his rapier. He was always there, one hand on his boomerang, his chin held high.

He had nothing to defend himself with back then, only his friends.

 

Here he is, fed up with everything, hating who he is. He says it kills his vision, but what even is his vision anymore? He tells us it’s peace, but he knows even he’s struggling with it.

Sky hates what he’s become. He doesn’t want to be the villain, but he doesn’t want to be the hero.

 

We couldn’t drop the fighting though. It’s our instinct, we have to in these dark times. Someone has to be the beacon now, Sky doesn’t know if that’s his place or not. I don’t think it is, I doubt he does too.

We’re not happy like this.

 

His goddess help him.

 

Someone should really tell him to look back on himself.

He’s a man of his past.

I am his past, though I can’t do much since I grew with him.

Someone of the present needs to. His head’s in the clouds, and I can’t haul him back to earth anymore.

 

He’s not an eagle. He’s not a bird of prey.

He’s a dove. He’s a bird of peace.

He needs to remember that.

 

[It’s a gray feather, speckled white.]

“Diamond dove”

Geopelia cuneata


	20. Chapter 20

[A photo of a boy, who you now know is Prince Andor, a younger Clear Sky. He’s sitting on a dock next to Sparklez, laughing about something.]

 

Every bit of our greatest stresses originated in Ruxomar. We call these the scales tipping, the Iron Age, the Incident, the Revival, the Apocalypse.

 

The four Ages of Man phased oddly in our realms. It started as a Golden Age, a time beyond my memory. It faded into an Iron Age, an age of destruction and war, man against man- this is where most of our lives took place. Where we live now is a Heroic Age, an age of demigods and heroes and the mortal man with every fiber of bravery. Descendants are many here, from Ianite’s line of Bolt to Clear Sky, from Dianite’s line of my dad to me, of Mianite’s line of Red and Jaybird.

 

The heroes fall apart. Bolt, Emerald, Red, Jaybird.

The demigods scan the wreckage. Mystic, Clear Sky, me.

The current champions pull at the strings of fate. Bolt and my father.

The former champions watch from the bottom. Pyrite.

 

What do we become? We want the Golden Age to return.

 

We don’t want another Iron Age. Helgrind destroyed the realm with his anger, ruining any chance of people like us pulling ahead of the race of balance.

We don’t want another Incident. The Inertia crushed Clear Sky, newly awakened and struggling to find footholds as an acolyte.

We don’t want another Revival. Arrows flew and swords clashed, Botan running his plague throughout the pit, driving his blade through his own son’s chest, corrupting him when he returned.

We don’t want another Apocalypse. Dragons and withers tore up the cityscape, uprooting the trees of Katsir, as the heroes, on daring wings, struggled to aim for the sky.

 

We want the Bloom, the Jailbreak, the Rebirth, the Trust.

 

We’re all sick. Sick of losing our gods, our friends, our hope.

Aim your arrows to the enemy. Fire for their heart.

When they die, our anger can quell. We can rest. For now, we are the most bitter of edible flowers, the sparks of burning tree bark, hell, we’d even be the flux itself if all went to hell.

 

We are our gods’ sorrow. We are those who sit on the raised plates of the scales, begging for them to go back down again. We are clipped wings and dulled talons that still urge to battle for freedom.

 

We had our freedom stolen.

Give it back to us.


	21. Chapter 21

[They’re cut out pieces of books, all glued or taped to the page…]

 

-"Empress of all scales and queen of all squares! Weep for your tokens, adversaries!"-

 

-“We stick together. No matter what happens. We’re a team, and we look after one another.-

 

-She had an expression like someone who’d just managed to finally alphabetize a million scrolls exactly right.-

 

-"I could see the future, but not just any future- all the possible futures. Do you understand what that means?-

 

-Even without them, I was as bad as ever, because I was willing to follow her.”-

 

-”Otherwise he’ll always be worrying about what she thinks of him. It’s her eyes on him that make him so afraid of his magic. He’d be much happier and less worried without her around.-

 

-And if I get caught, my life is over.-


	22. Prismarine Temple

[A blue ribbon is taped to these pages, it reads “PRISMARINE TEMPLE”.]

 

The only temple not lost to the flows of time and thunderclouds was the Mianite Temple in Riphia, a large prismarine structure patterned with white and gold. As wary as we are of these places, with a little change in outfits we were able to blend in with the crowd.

 

It’s an awful shame that this place reminds Sky of Dagrun so much, he’s used to port towns and the constant smell of sea spray, but everywhere remotely close to such a description had been Mianitee-majority, further shaking him up. 

 

The temple was much more elegant than its sibling buildings, not worn from age, scorched from peril, or dusty from disuse. It was as modern as temples could get, and not even a place of worship was free of overly-complicated machines such as the kinds Pyrite and Bolt took to.

 

It had its fair share of stained glass, yellow and blue casting green and cyan onto the marble, lit up perhaps too brightly by sea lanterns and glowstone. Mosaics patterned the floor, shining despite their likely age and wear.

 

Plenty of people wandered around, tourists and Riphia natives alike. Sky found a library and swiftly vanished from my sight. 

He’s hard to find in places with way too many books, even if you are keeping an eye on him. You look away for a millisecond and he’s already got his face in something he found to read.

 

Of course I found Sky like this, a little beyond the worshippers reading religious texts for the hell of it. He sat with a more historical book in his hands, picking out what strands of truth there were and scrawling it down. “They should really call these fiction by how much they’re lying in these,” he muttered.

 

When spent the rest of the day like this, picking through books and ancient texts that were too outdated to apply to our reality. Sky scowled at books with the name of World Historian on their spines. Regardless, he picked a few, either out of family curiosity or a need for knowledge only he held.

 

By the end of it we were playing detective, connecting piece to piece and part to part. We didn’t uncover much anything new relating to the history of Ezaven.

 

What we did end up discovering, outside of the books and using what we managed to catch in snippets, was an awful plan fluttering among the Golden Realm to kill us for good.


	23. Chapter 23

The end of the world began with a portal.

 

Pyrite cracked his neck quickly, getting the stiffness out, arms full of whatever he’d found at the bazaar. We’d found ourselves in the suburbs of a city he’d come to call home after he’d left Hero’s Fall. He’d moved to Amphiptere. He ran his operations out of an abandoned warehouse that everyone in the city had just wanted rejuvenated already, and he had been happy to take it.

It must’ve been strange for a man with a practical empire of machinery and robotics and energy to start again from nothing. Not even his god was on his side anymore.

 

Pyrite couldn’t care less, not anymore. Too much time had passed for him to care. What mattered now was rebuilding.

 

He’d been working on a portal he’d found out in the desert, bringing it back to a usable standard with help. He’d been at it for a matter of months, and it struck awful pangs of familiarity in my and Sky’s heads. It was too much like the portal at Pyrite’s base back in Ruxomar, the thing that had been our escape route. This one was elevated though, rather than sunken in the floor, and it was built on top of cracking concrete.

 

They didn’t care where it was going to connect. It was going to be for emergencies, in case we had to quickly get out just as we had before. Pyrite wanted a head start though, he wasn’t going to let more people die like before. This time he was going to stabilize it, he said. So Sky wouldn’t get almost killed by it again, so none of us would, so that it landed in someplace without having chances of switching.

He couldn’t set where it led, so it ended up. Coordinates stuck, none of the three of us could identify where it led to. Whatever realm he’d connected it to, it was too out of our knowledge. He said he would’ve asked Bolt, see if he had insight, but he was out.

 

The past few weeks we’ve been hopping between the portal ruins and Amphiptere, and it’s a big scenery change. Amphiptere’s just a big plain with a circular plateau off in one of the corners, where the main city was constructed. We’re so used to desert or forest that plains just feel weird and empty.

 

Sky had ditched his armor in favor of not getting recognized in the capital of Ezaven. Before Pyrite had gone off to the desert one day, we vouched on staying in Amphiptere for the day. He said downtown was likely where we wouldn’t be bored, and he sent us off towards the plateau.

 

Amphiptere is a gaudy city, obviously full of Mianitees, by the look of the city on the plateau. Blue and gold fabric criss-crossed across shop stalls and over the city streets, paved strangely like cobble, but instead of stone, it was iron and quartz, often inlaid with gold. In the center of the massive plateau was a white cylindrical building with a very obvious creature cast in prismarine and even more gold- an amphiptere- curled around its edges. Walking down the marble streets, we came up to this building, probably originally for Sky to just admire the work of the sculpture on top of it. His eyes shifted to the door as someone walked to it, and he lowered his hand from trying to reach tail of the sculpture.

 

Without even looking at me, he slipped inside. Thank goodness it was public-access.

There came another issue as I stepped inside as well, and it’s that he completely ignored the check-in counter that was present, and judging the lady at the desk had obviously never seen him before (he was tired, scratched and banged up, dirty, not a presentable businessman at all), she threw him a weird look as did two people sitting in a nearby seat in the lobby as he went into the nearest hallway. “Sorry,” I had muttered to the lady, brushing past a dude in a suit as I went chasing after Sky. “Adventure calls.”

 

He followed on the tail of the person who had entered the building before he had. I would’ve asked him every question that surfaced in my mind, but I knew better than to bother him.

He almost chased the guy we were following into a conference room, but just as he stepped a millimeter in, the door was slammed in his face, leaving us in front of an opaque, windowless, white wall.

 

But just before the door had shut, I’d caught sight of a very startled Herod Johnston, one of the leaders of the Golden Realm.


	24. The Fall

Something had set Sky off. Suddenly we were back out on the road, taking first to nomad desert camps then back off into the cities. We’re at least no longer regarded as just a street act in Veracrates, though Sky still hates the approach we’re taking in it, and even though it’s almost the same as what we’re doing in Willowwoods, he says it’s a different case. In Veracrates, they actually bother to take your words to mind. We could be less forceful about it.

 

Willowwoods was rough after we went. Seems the Golden Realm tightened their grip over there. We got pretty far, Sky got angry, as he does, but I got to see a rather strange feat.

His eyes went purple. Like, solid purple. No whites. No pupil. Violet. He sounded rather echo-y, like a second person followed his speech exactly, but I couldn’t see anyone else talking and it sure as hell wasn’t me. He’d whipped up a whirlwind as well, though he tends to do that subconsciously anyway.

We were promptly chased out of Willowwoods. Again.

 

But the Golden Realm caught on, and they caught on fast. Their plan we’d overheard them discussing back in Riphia was taking place today, and we were eventually cornered in the desert by a fleet of about 13 airships. 13 airships of about a crew of five each, to two people.

Two of us, almost 65 of them. We were basically dead, because they were armed.

 

Whether or not Sky would’ve been killed on sight or subdued, I’d never know. It felt like half of them were going for kill-on-sight, the rest going to try and knock him out. Either way, we ran like hell.

 

Sky picked up a draft and we flew as quickly as we could through the desert, headed towards really nothing. As Mianite does, a thunderstorm picked up, and we spent some time barely dodging lightning bolts. I burnt the edges of my wings on one, almost making me plummet from the sky.

 

We were taking heavy gunfire even though we’d be flying for what felt like ages. My wings were sore even though Sky tried to let me rest them a bit by shifting our drafts, and Sky was running out of energy. He’d come up with a plan, though.

 

For the past few months, he’d broke it to me, Ianite was telling him to go somewhere else.

He had no place in Ezaven.

It was madness to me at the time, I told him Ezaven wasn’t going to get any better without him. He told me that was where I’d come in. He wanted me to be the hero, not him.

 

The Heroic Age still burned here. Demigods and heroes, though strewn about and little without partners as of right now. Sky said he had his chances, that he’d used them to his best, that I could do better than him.

Right now, Ianite wanted him to go somewhere else, and Dianite wanted me to stay. Once again, we’d have to break apart. We were used to this.

 

So he headed for the portal, too tired to keep fighting back. I passed him his bag, gave him everything. Things to remember me by, in case he wasn’t coming back.

 

I even wrote this, flying mid-air, and as we landed near the portal, still activated, he asked me, “Everything goes away, right?”

“Everything goes away. But if you need me, I’ll be right here.”

 

And what I think will happen now, in these last few seconds of me blindly scrawling ink onto parchment, is that I’ll toss the book to him, and he’ll jump.

 

-CARDINAL


End file.
